


Rebreak

by cagestark



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bittersweet Ending, Cheating, Drugs, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, Morgan is their adopted child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 01:16:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22327555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cagestark/pseuds/cagestark
Summary: After twelve years, Tony falls off the wagon.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 19
Kudos: 226





	Rebreak

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was: Tony and Peter are closer in age and have been together for years, married + children. Tony falls back into drinking, drugs, gambling. Peter leaves him. Must be HEA. 

The phone call comes in the middle of the night. 

Peter’s eyes crack open, seeing only the darkness of his bedroom. In a split moment, he recognizes the noise as Tony’s ringtone, reaching out to slap at his husband (who could sleep through the second coming of Christ if he’d been working in the lab long enough). The phone is deafening, and all Peter can think of is their four year old daughter sleeping in the next room.

“Tony,” he hisses, planting his hand on one blanket clad hip and shaking violently. “Get your phone before it wakes Morgan.” 

Tony groans. One of his hands reaches out, slapping at the nightstand. The ringtone continues for another few moments—endless, time-space continuum defying moments—before it cuts off, his husband’s sleep roughened voice croaking a greeting into the phone. Peter holds his breath, trying to listen through the walls to hear the patter of tiny feet on the hardwood. She’s been going through a sleep regression. All the parenting websites say that it’s normal at her age, but it’s taken a toll on everyone’s sleep in the penthouse.

“Oh God,” Tony croaks into the phone. Goosebumps bloom on Peter’s arms. His eyes open again, staring into the dark. That tone—he’s never heard Tony sound like that before. On the other end of the phone, Peter can hear the murmur of a deep, male voice, but no hint at the words being spoken. “Are you sure? Maybe there’s a mistake, maybe—oh God. I’ll come. I’ll—I’ve got to go.” 

Peter sits up, scalp prickling with preemptive horror. “Tony, what it is?” 

“Mom’s dead. She went off the road in her Bentley, they think she had a stroke. Jarvis just, he,  _ identified  _ her—” A sound comes out of Tony’s mouth, not unlike the sound of a tortured animal. In the darkness Peter just sees the silhouette of him, palm pressed flat to his mouth, shoulders shaking. 

“Tony,” Peter says, throwing off the covers and crawling across the space between them to throw his arms around his husband’s shoulders. Tony latches on to him, shaking like a leaf in the wind. 

“Do you think, maybe, maybe he made a mistake?” Tony asks, voice wet and raw. 

Jarvis has worked for Tony’s family for longer than Tony has been alive. When Maria refused to have anything save a home birth, Jarvis assisted the midwives who came. When Howard died more than ten years ago, he’d been the pallbearer behind Tony, helping carry the senior Stark to his final resting place. All this, and Peter doesn’t know what to say, how to say that he doesn’t think there’s a chance Jarvis is wrong. He doesn’t know how to take the last shred of delusion that seems to be the only thing (save for Peter’s thin arms around him) keeping his head above water. 

“I don’t know,” Peter lies, squeezing tighter. “I don’t know.”

-

It’s like the Matrix Effect. Peter watches his life fall apart, watches the metaphorical bullets come towards him, but unlike Neo, Peter is helpless to dodge them. 

All of their old friends come together from where they’ve scattered across the country: Bucky and Steve from Seattle, Rhodey from DC, Natasha from “Ohio” so she says, and more. They arrive one by one, filing in through the door with their somber faces, wrapping Peter and Morgan in their arms before asking the inevitable question:  _ where’s Tony? _

Everyone knows what Maria meant to Tony: she’s Morgan’s middle namesake. Growing up with a cold father had made him a mama’s boy through and through. More than once, Tony had talked to Peter about moving her from Malibu to New York City so that she could stay with them in the Tower. 

Only now, it’s too late. 

“He’s down in his lab,” Peter says. He casts a glance towards where Morgan sits at the coffee table watching cartoons and coloring feverishly. She’s too young to feel much more than uncomfortable with all the tears and hushed voices that surround her lately. She knows that Tita Maria has passed away, but whether it is by resilience or the pseudo-psychopathy of children, she hasn’t cried over it . “If it weren’t for FRIDAY monitoring him, I’d think that he’d gone down to—to hurt himself.” 

“It’s that bad,” Steve says, not so much a question as a statement. 

“Whatever you’re thinking?” Peter says, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “Worse.” 

It takes three hours down in the lab before they bring Tony up to the penthouse, and for a moment when Tony appears in the doorway, hunched over, eyes red and slow to blink, stumbling over his own two feet, Peter thinks that it must just be exhaustion. That’s why it looks so familiar, why it sets his teeth on edge, why his stomach churns. Tony is exhausted. 

But when they carry him by on their way to the master bed and bath (where they’ll put him in a shower fully clothed) Peter can smell the whiskey like the foulest cologne. His heart sinks—after twelve long years, Tony has broken his sobriety. 

Steve and Bucky tell Peter that they’ll help clean Tony up and get him in bed, so he drifts to the sofa by Morgan like a ghost might. He sits staring at the cartoons seeing visions from more than ten years ago. 

When Tony and Peter had gone to high school together, Tony had already acquired a reputation. Peter hadn’t given him more than fleeting glances then (fleeting glances because  _ God _ , Tony could take any person’s breath away with his youthful attraction and charm and wit). It wasn’t until they’d crossed paths at MIT that Peter and Tony drifted together, the only two students from their alma mater to attend the school in Cambridge. 

It was against Peter’s best interests. Tony led a lifestyle that couldn’t be condoned nor replicated: partying all night, drinking and drugs and a brush in with the police that they’d only just had scrubbed from his record. All this, yet he’d still arrive in class Monday morning, hungover and cranky and brilliant and insightful.  _ All geniuses are like this, aren’t they? _ Peter asked his Aunt May.  _ Tortured, I mean.  _ May had given him the most pitying look he’d ever seen in his nineteen years alive and said, You  _ aren’t.  _

Dating Tony had been a wild, breathless experience, like riding a roller coaster. Twelve minute rambling phone messages left in his voicemail at three in the morning. No contact for two days. Five dozen roses sent to his dorm room. The time he asked Peter to store a box in his room when Tony’d been tipped off that the school was going to search his dorm (and it wasn’t until Peter had opened the box and found the coke that he’d lost his cool for the first time). Tony had made it up to him by taking them on a trip to his parent’s cabin upstate for Christmas, no phones, just the two of them and all the board games they could play, and making love by the fire. Those had been some of the best memories of Peter’s life—good enough for him to overlook Tony’s frequent bathroom breaks and sniffling nose.

Tony proposed on their graduation day, and Peter didn’t hesitate to say yes. College was a wild time for everyone, but it was obvious that Tony wanted to settle down, begin taking over some duties around Stark Industries, get married, start a family. Why else would he have proposed? 

Excuses, Peter knew now. 

“The coke helps me invent,” Tony says, head tucked between his knees to try to stop his nose from bleeding. Another shirt, ruined. Peter stopped trying to get the blood out anymore. “I have to keep expanding on my work, Pete. I’m under so much pressure—from my dad, from the company, from the press. Please don’t add on to it.” 

Peter had begged him to see reason, to go to rehab. He hosted an intervention, eerily similar to the gathering that was taking place now with all of their friends. Tony had told them all to go to hell, had walked out of the Tower and not come back for three days. When he did, he’d found Peter waiting for him, to feed him meals he’d throw up, to stroke his hair while he vomited and came down from whatever bender he’d been on. 

Then came the ultimatum. Peter had said that if he didn’t get sober, Peter would leave him. 

Tony had said,  _ There’s the door.  _

And Peter hadn’t been able to bear it. He spent one night on May’s couch, visions playing like nightmares in his head. Without him there, what stood between Tony and death? Who would roll him into his side after a binge? Who would listen to his breathing until it evened out? 

When Peter arrived back at the Tower, Tony wasn’t even in the penthouse. He came up from the lab twelve hours later and blinked at the sight of Peter on the sofa. But at least he had never rubbed Peter’s weakness in his face. Maybe it was because he knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to weaknesses. 

Howard died, Tony took over as CEO, and there were a tumultuous few months where Peter wasn’t sure if any of them would make it through in one piece. Their savior came in the form of Pepper Potts who rolled up her sleeves and hauled the company from the depths of ruin with her bare hands. Somehow, Tony had followed. In his own time. 

Peter learned that Tony was a force of nature. Peter had a lesser chance of swaying Tony than the trees do of swaying the wind. All he can do is grab hold and weather the storm. 

_ I can’t do it again,  _ Peter finds himself thinking, staring at the cartoonish colors blurring on the television with his tears. 

A half hour later, Steve and Bucky come from the room, shirts splattered with water, their shoulders slumped and foreheads creased. 

“I can’t blame him for falling off the wagon,” Bucky says, casting nervous glances to each of them. “If I lost my mom—I’m sure I’d drown it in the bottle too.”

Steve says nothing. 

But Peter feels it—feels the judgement. Feels the fear. Or maybe that’s just what  _ he’s  _ feeling, amplified since it comes from deep inside his chest. After Morgan is in bed for the night, Peter lays in bed listening to Tony snore. Sleep doesn’t come easy; it barely comes at all. 

When they wake in the morning, Tony is hungover and pretending that last night didn’t happen. Peter decides that he can pretend too, as long as it never happens again. 

-

Peter runs out of shampoo, and that’s how he finds Tony’s cocaine. 

Tony uses Oribe shampoo that costs $150 dollars a bottle. He took to it after the blowtorch accident six years ago when he’d singed his hair (the lab, the elevator, the penthouse and Tony had smelled for weeks). It restores, it protects from oxidation, and is made of Edelweiss flower extract. Peter has read the bottle many a shower-session while letting his strawberry-scented conditioner soak into his hair. 

On a day three months after Maria’s death, Peter runs out of his own.

“FRIDAY,” Peter calls over the roar of the shower, sitting the empty container where he won’t forget to throw it away.. “Please order me more shampoo.”

Still, his hair needs washed. Tony has two bottles of Oribe, so Peter figures that he can tolerate smelling like he’s rubbed his head in an Austrian flower field for a few days. The first bottle he reaches for is nearly empty (he can tell by the airy weight in his hand), but the second has much more weight. But no matter how he pumps the nozzle, no shampoo comes out. 

Frowning, Peter untwists the top and glances down into the bottle. 

It’s not much. A gram or two, maybe enough for 8 nice sized lines. In his mind, he sees himself doing his graduate homework at the Tower, sitting curled up on the sofa and watching with distaste as Tony cut up his lines. By that time, he could rail a whole gram in one go—but Tony liked to  _ savor  _ it. Here with the baggie in his hands and water dripping into his eyes, all Peter can think is there is more. This isn’t a stash. This is a contingency, a plan B in case Peter ever found his real cache. 

Peter goes to pack Morgan an overnight bag, but while he’s packing away a little pair of pajamas, clean underwear, socks, clothes for tomorrow, he finds himself packing more than he needs to. Much more. Like maybe there’s a part of him that already knows she won’t be coming back to the Tower. He drives her to May’s, dodges his aunt’s concerned questions, and makes it back to the Tower with three hours before Tony gets off work. 

“FRIDAY,” Peter calls, standing in the main room. “I want privacy protocols activated. That means no access to the penthouse for a while, okay? Not unless there is a serious emergency.”

“Understood,” FRIDAY says. “Engaging privacy protocols.” 

It would be useful to have the AI’s help, but Peter has no doubt that she has been programmed to silence. More than likely, at the first sign of Peter searching, she would be required by her maker to alert Tony. Peter loves FRIDAY, knows that Tony views her as a child of sorts. To witness her being used for such unhealthy purposes would break Peter’s heart. 

He’s just going to have to trust his old instincts. 

When he checks the safe, Tony has changed the numbers. More than likely, the cache is there, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have grams tucked around the penthouse for emergency purposes. He tears the place apart, looking high and low. A gram inside one coffee mug at the back of the cabinet (Tony knows Peter doesn’t drink coffee, that Peter never needs to reach for a mug). One in the pair of dress shoes that are just too small for Tony to wear. Some classic places: inside the toilet tank, taped to the underneath of the table in the foyer. 

Tony arrives to chaos, the penthouse uprooted from top to bottom, DVD’s taken from their boxes, cushions upended from the couch, silverware drawers spilled out across the marble countertops. On the dining table are the twelve grams that Peter found scattered around.

“Hi,” Peter says, lacing his fingers together on the table to stop them from shaking. 

Tony’s face goes blank, but he doesn’t run. That’s in his favor. That gives Peter a flame of hope inside of him, more smoke than fire, but there nonetheless. It’s all he needs. It’s all he ever needs. Slow steps lead Tony to the table where he pulls out a chair and sits across from his husband. 

“Say your peace,” Tony says flatly. He’s lost weight, maybe ten pounds, maybe fifteen. The circles under his eyes, the deepening lines around his mouth. How much had Peter written off as grief? How had he missed this? 

“Give it up.” 

“It’s an  _ addiction _ , Peter.” 

“You’ve done it before—” 

“I was younger; giving up now could kill me, do you know that? I’ve got a fucking heart condition now, Pete. Polysubstance dependence—” 

“ _ This _ will kill you,” Peter says, slapping his open palm on the table. He takes a deep, steadying breath. “Whatever drinking you’ve been doing down in the lab, hiding from me?  _ That  _ will kill you. I’m not asking, Tony. I’m telling you. If it’s not safe for you to do on your own like it was last time, then you need to think about rehab—” 

“Jesus Christ, Peter, what is this hard-on you always have for rehab? Get over it and give it up! It’s not an option.  _ It will never be an option _ . The company would tank, stocks would plummet. I’m not driving my father’s company into the ground just so I can sit around and sing kumbaya and get my morning dose of pharmacotherapeutics.” 

“Either you go to rehab,” Peter says. “Or I take Morgan, and I  _ leave _ .” 

It says a lot, Peter thinks, that Tony doesn’t even look worried. 

“That worked out well for you last time,” Tony says flatly. Fuck, he’s always mean when he’s on coke, always has the sharp tounge and quick wit even when he’s sober but the  _ drugs _ —the drugs sap all the kindness and empathy from his heart. This is Tony unfiltered. This is who his husband always has the potential to become. “You couldn’t leave all those years ago when we didn’t have half so many reasons to stay together. I’m going to take a shower; no more discussing this bullshit, Peter. I mean it.” 

Peter follows into the bedroom. He spends a long time sitting on the edge of the bed staring at the crack in the bathroom door, listening to the roar of the shower, feeling numb to it all. Tony’s right. Last time Peter had threatened to leave, it had been a failure, and they hadn’t had nearly so many years together, so much time invested in each other. They hadn’t adopted a child together. 

He knows then: he might be too weak to leave Tony for his own good, but he’s plenty strong enough to leave Tony for the good of Morgan. 

Peter packs a bag with only the essentials, leaving his toothbrush in the bathroom where his husband showers. He thinks about leaving his wedding ring on the table beside the mound of cocaine but—he can’t. He just can’t. When he twists the palladium band up away from his knuckles, there’s a shadow where it’s meant to be. He leaves it alone. 

Baby steps, Peter. 

-

When Peter knocks on May’s door, she looks down at the bag in his hands and asks no questions. She moves aside and lets him in. 

-

The next day, Tony messages to say that he’s not touching the mess Peter made of the Penthouse, and he’ll have to clean it up himself when he drags his sorry-self back to the Tower. Gritting his teeth, Peter deletes the message without responding. Morgan asks over dinner (pot roast and potatoes, which Peter chipped in to help pay for) when they’ll be going home.

“I don’t know, baby,” Peter lies. When May passes behind him on her way to refill her iced tea, she puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes softly. 

-

It’s day three when it must hit Tony that this time is different. It’s just past midnight when Peter’s phone buzzes where he’s fallen asleep with it pressed to his chest. May gave up her full sized bed to Peter and Morgan and took up residence on the pull-out couch, and Pete is grateful for the extra room when Morgan rolls and digs her knobbly elbows into his spine. When he sees his husband’s name on his phone, he is wide awake despite having fallen asleep barely an hour ago. Stumbling to the bathroom to avoid waking Morgan, Peter answers the call and whispers a hushed, “Hello?” 

“Bring her back, Peter,” Tony says. His voice is barely recognizable, rough and angry, something downright demonic speaking through him. “She’s my child too, you can’t keep her from me—” 

“Try me! I haven’t taken her on a  _ vacation  _ or something, I’m trying to keep her safe,” Peter hisses. From you, he doesn’t add. 

“ _ Are you stupid? _ take you to fucking court,” Tony says. “Good luck hiring any fucking lawyer in New York—in the tri-state area! I’ll have the best money can buy, the best money can’t even buy, I swear to God, I’ll take everything from you Peter and I’ll  _ start  _ with Morgan.” 

It sends a stab of fear through Peter’s chest. Morgan is everything to him—begrudgingly, he knows that she is just as important to Tony. It breaks his fucking heart that he has to keep his daughter from a father that she loves and that he knows loves her. It breaks his heart that these are the choices he has to make. And it makes him  _ angry _ .

“Good luck passing a court-ordered piss test,” Peter says through his teeth.

“ _ Do you think I’m a goddamn  _ joke _?” _ Tony shouts into the phone. “ _ Bring my daughter home or I’ll fucking tear this entire city apart looking for you two to bring her home myself!” _

Peter hangs up the phone. Tony calls back immediately. He’s always the one to give and need space during fights with Peter, the least likely to raise his voice, to slam a door, to chase after Peter. But if there’s one thing that brief phone call showed him, it’s that his husband is gone. Transformed. Peter turns off his phone to stop the endless calls streaming in. 

Closing the lid on the toilet seat, Peter sits down heavily and palms his eyes. If he cries for a while, there’s no one there to see it. 

-

In the days after the midnight phone call, Tony reenters the spotlight. Media reports stream in, ‘sources close to Mr. and Mr. Stark’ describing Tony’s relapse into drugs and alcohol and accounts of people saying the two of them have split. Some of it is sensationalist: there was no screaming match in a Stark Industries boardroom, and Peter doubts that Tony was found in a drunken sleep on his mother’s grave, but the essence of the news is true, and like dogs with bones buried deep underground, the media digs. 

It was only a matter of time before they found something in Tony’s sordid past to use as headline fodder, but this—Peter had never expected this. 

“Morgan, go to your room,” Peter says, unable to take his eyes off the television screen. May scrambled to mute it as soon as Tony’s name was heard, but the headlines are there in bold font. TONY STARK’S MIT SEX TAPE.

“I don’t have a room,” Morgan mutters. Her dismal mood has nearly matched Peter’s. As much as she loves May, she misses her room, her toys, her father. The longer they are away, the crankier she grows. 

“Come on, Morganite,” May says, scooping the girl up to plant her on one hip. “I think I have some ice cream in the freezer.” 

“What if you don’t?” Morgan asks suspiciously. 

“Then we’ll go get some—” 

“From  _ where _ ?” 

The sound of their voices fades in and out along with the blood rushing in Peter’s ears. They don’t show the video on screen, but there are stills that are unmistakable, two lovers embracing and kissing. Around them is Tony’s MIT dorm room, and even though it’s been fifteen years, just the sight of it brings back memories. The smell of motor oil and pot from the neighboring dorm room (okay, sometimes their dorm room too), the way the curtains filtered the early morning sunlight and turned the east-facing room blue as the sun rose. 

The only thing different is—Tony isn’t with Peter The young man’s face is vaguely familiar. Maybe someone from their shared applied physics class. 

Numbly, Peter turns on his phone which has remained off for the last three days. The notifications rack up: dozens of calls and texts and voicemails. He skims through the texts watching Tony’s moods swing like a pendulum. Heartfelt apologies. Furious threats. Wishing Peter dead. Begging him to come back to the Penthouse. Asking after Morgan, again and again and again. 

The voicemails are even worse: six minutes of drunken rambling, three minutes of silence, shouting so loud that Peter has to hold the phone from his ear, crying and sniffing into the phone. The last came two hours before. Peter listens, heart thudding hard enough to make his ribs ache.  _ Peter, _ Tony says, voice rough and wet.  _ I’m so sorry. For the tape, for the drugs. Everything. Please help me fix this. You and Morgan are my life.  _

Peter calls him back, twisting the ring on his shaking finger. 

Tony answers after two single rings. “Peter? Pete?” 

Clearing his throat of the knot that’s tied itself there, he croaks, “Yeah.” 

“Fuck. Thank you. Thank you for calling. How are you, how’s Morgan?” 

“Morgan is fine,” Peter says.

“And—you?”

“There’s only one way to fix it, Tony,” Peter says. “One way. I’ll forgive you for that, that tape—” 

“It was one time, Peter, before we graduated I promise you—” 

“—I’ll forgive you for all of this. On one condition.” 

“Anything. I swear it. You and Morgan are the only good things in my life, I’ll—” 

“You said, you said help me fix this, but this isn’t mine to fix. You already know what you have to do to have us in your life. Go to rehab.” The silence on the other end lasts so long that Peter pulls the phone from his face to see if the call is still ongoing. It is. He clears his throat, one hand palming at his wet eyes. “Go to rehab, and when you get out, you can come and pick up me and Morgan, and we’ll all go home. Together.” 

Tony sighs. “Peter.” 

“You said anything.” 

“Anything...anything but that.” 

“‘Anything  _ but’  _ isn’t  _ anything _ !” 

“I’m not going,” Tony says. Peter hears it clearly in his voice: Tony means it. He’s really not going. 

Peter’s shaking hand goes back to his wedding band, where he twists and takes it off. “Alright.”

“Alright?” 

“You made your choice, I guess,” says Peter. He feels empty, numb, like the winter May’s baseboard heaters broke and the cold seeped in and made their fingers stiff and blood sluggish. “We’ll work out custody, but I’m not lying to the courts for you about your drug problem. I have to protect Morgan.” 

“What are you talking about?” Tony asks. “You said—Jesus Christ, Peter, come home.  _ Come home! _ ” 

“I’m not coming home,” Peter says, slow and patient. When all Tony does is laugh, an empty hateful sound, Peter adds on a whim: “Your mom would be  _ so  _ disappointed in you, Tony.” 

He hangs up before Tony can reply. Already, he feels childish. What a juvenile thing, to wield Tony’s mother against him (even if it’s true, even if Maria was the most straight edge and upright woman Peter knew) and then hang up on him like a teen in middle school, desperate for the last word. Juvenile or not, he turns off his phone before he can make any more mistakes. 

Tucking his wedding ring into his pocket, he wipes his eyes clean and goes into the kitchen where he can hear May and Morgan bickering over chocolate sauce versus butterscotch. 

-

The next day, May goes with him to the post office so he can insure and mail the palladium ring Tony gave him in a tiny dorm room in Massachusetts. While he writes the address for the Tower, he’s still seeing that small room full of boxes after their graduation, room tinted blue from the sunlight coming in, the way Tony had breathed  _ marry me? _ with Peter’s back still pressed to his chest from their sleep. 

His heart breaks a little more, but sometimes things need to be rebroken to heal the right way.

-

Later that week, Peter turns his phone back on. He deletes any messages without listening. No more calls come through, and even though it’s what he wanted, it still hurts. Peter figures that’s how he knows he’s doing the right thing. Because it hurts. 

-

Peter colors with Morgan, pictures torn from her coloring books that he plans to mail to Tony. It’s one safe way for them to interact when Peter doesn’t trust Tony’s nature on the coke. When his phone buzzes, he thinks it’s his lawyer finally getting back to him—things need figured out, custody, child support, marital assets. Before they married, Peter had signed a pre-nup to protect Stark Industries, but there are plenty of endeavors that they’d invested in together. Peter will need those funds to help support Morgan until he’s working again. 

But the text is from May: a news article. 

Peter has been on a media blackout since evidence of Tony cheating dropped, since he called his lawyer to begin the divorce process. May wouldn’t send him the gossip rags though; she must believe this is important. 

TMZ’s breaking news: TONY STARK CHECKS SELF INTO REHAB. The Dunes East Hampton, a five star luxury rehab center in Long Island. There are photos, Tony in jeans and one of Peter’s old t-shirts, tight across his chest. Pepper is with him looking appropriately somber. They go in together, and only Pepper leaves. 

“Oh my god,” Peter murmurs, heart pounding. 

_ Tony went. He really went.  _

Peter texts Pepper. He’s been avoiding contact with her—while they were friends, he knows that she was closer with Tony. He didn’t feel justified in messaging her, in using her as an in-between to find out how his husband was doing. But now things have changed.  **Is it real?** he asks. 

**70 days,** Pepper says.

**He’ll leave early,** Peter replies. His deepest fear. 

**You’ll see,** is all Pepper says. Then she asks about how he’s doing and how Morgan is doing, tells him that the Tower is Tony and paraphernalia-free if he wants to stay there. Peter opts to come by and pick up more of Morgan’s stuff: some toys that have suddenly become invaluable since their departure. Pepper meets them there, and she’s friendly (if a little awkward). 

The Penthouse is clean, unlike when he left it. Had Pepper hired a service or had Tony cleaned it himself?

“How did you convince him to go?” Peter asks through the corner of his mouth while Morgan picks crayons from a tub in her room. She’s exhibiting more and more anxiety since they’ve left home, becoming more and more rigid in her ways. Now she can only use crayons that are unbroken or she descends into hysteria. He’s thinking of looking into therapy for her. 

For himself, too. 

Pepper gives him the strangest look. “Don’t you know?” she asks. 

Peter doesn’t answer. 

-

It’s one of the first cool days of fall when Peter comes home from an interview at Langan Engineering and Environmental Services to find Tony sitting outside May’s apartment. He’s gained weight, and for the first time Peter notices just how much Tony had lost during the months after his mother’s death. 

“Hey, Pete,” Tony says, and Peter feels a longing so intense that it’s physical, a fist that has his heart in its grip and squeezes tighter and tighter. Tony reaches up and taps his knuckles on the door. From inside comes an shouted,  _ Get lost! _ “I’ve already greeted May,” he says, eyes sparkling a little. Sober eyes, soft and brown.

“Morgan isn’t here,” Peter says, mouth dry. “She’s going to a private day care now. I don’t pick her up until four.” 

“I know,” Tony says calmly. “I’m here to see you.” 

“Tony,” Peter begins, unsure where the sentence is heading, unsure what he’s trying to say. 

When Tony stands, he is all creaking joints, wincing from being in the same position for so long. Peter doesn’t back away, but he’s keenly aware of how close they are, how narrow the hallway is, the scent of his estranged husband’s cologne and the familiarity of the crook of his smile. Fifteen years of marriage and even longer spent together—smiles and scents, those are the sort of things Peter won’t ever be able to forget about, no matter how many years pass. 

“I came to say thank you,” Tony says. “And I’m sorry.” 

“I didn’t do anything,” Peter says. 

“You were looking out for me, but more importantly you were looking out for Morgan. She’s so lucky to have at least one stable parent. I—” Tony’s face goes through a complex change of emotions that Peter can’t follow. “Do you think she can ever forgive me for going away?” 

Peter softens. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m sure she can. Once you earn her trust back.” 

“And you?” Tony asks. “Can you forgive me?” 

“I—need time.” 

Tony swallows. He clears his throat. “That’s fair. Fairer than I deserve.” 

He reaches into his pocket, and Peter has no idea what he’s expecting, but it’s just an innocuous envelope, bulging a little with the inner contents. Tony untucks the flap and out slides Peter’s wedding ring. “I know I can’t ask you to wear this again. I  _ didn’t  _ know that—my therapist had to tell me—but  _ now _ , I know. I guess I’m hoping that even if you can’t wear it yet or ever again, you can hold on to it for a while more. While you’re taking your time. While I’m trying to ‘build on my stability and reestablish trust’ or whatever. You’d like her, I think. My therapist. Anyway—” 

Peter takes the ring and closes the metal in his palm. It’s warm from resting in Tony’s pocket. 

“I’ll do that,” Peter promises. “I’ll hold on to it while we—talk. And I think I’d like to meet her, maybe.” 

“Yeah?” Tony asks. “I pretty much have standing appointments from now until the end of time. Are you free any Tuesday and Thursday from now until Yom Kapoor?” 

Peter struggles not to smile. “I’ll check my schedule and get back to you.” 

They part, promising to meet later this week at an ice-cream parlor in Queens where Tony can see Morgan. When he opens the door to enter the apartment, he nearly smacks May in the nose. She doesn’t even have the shame to look slightly guilty for eavesdropping, though she does make a hasty excuse about starting dinner three hours early, disappearing into the kitchen. 

Peter rests his back against the front door, chest feeling light, full of butterfly wings. He opens his palm to look at the ring there, the familiar weight of it, tracing his thumb along the smooth metal. It slides back on with just a little work, and while it doesn’t feel like it’s never left, Peter thinks that maybe that’s a good thing. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments and criticism welcome. Find me on tumblr @ cagestark


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